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by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Series: The Homecoming [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dissociation, F/F, F/M, Graphic Decriptions of the aftermath of War Violence, Graphic Description of Corpses, Graphic Description of Murder, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 01:45:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1964262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is a Pandora’s box of secrets and repressed atrocities.  Most days he manages to keep the lid on.  But sometimes something happens, the most innocuous occurrence knocks the lid ajar.  </p><p>And the things that start to seep out at the breach…  </p><p>The suffocating horror of it all…</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> HEED THE TAGS.
> 
> This installment is much darker than the other stories in this series, so please heed the tags! I'm not even kidding. I would feel really horrible if someone was triggered by any of this. There is no onscreen violence, but there are plenty of pretty graphic descriptions of the results and aftermath of violence that has happened in the past, including murder and war violence.
> 
> I also just want to take a brief moment to again thank everyone who has been reading this series. Your support has been amazing. I am so honored that you are even reading let alone all the lovely kudos and comments you are leaving. You are all wonderful and so encouraging, so thank-you!
> 
> Reading the rest of the series is not a requirement, but as always, this story will make more sense in the greater context of the whole.

John is standing at the sink doing the washing up.  He is wearing jeans and a cotton plaid button-down.  He has the sleeves rolled up.  The muscles in his forearms clench and flex as he scrubs the frying pan in his hands.  His knuckles are pink and slightly chapped.  He should wear gloves but he never listens to reason.  He’s just had his hair cut ( _when did that happen?_ ).  There is a small smear of shaving cream dried behind his right ear.  

 _Perfect!_ There is a box of tea on the shelf to John’s left.  Sherlock could approach on the right, and reach across to get it.  This would allow him to touch John.  Then, if he just happened to notice the shaving cream, and—yes.  Good.

John glances over with a smile as he joins him at the sink.

“I’m just going to…”  Sherlock nods toward the tea, and then reaches out to grab it.  John steps back a little, but the side of sherlock’s ribs still brush against John’s chest.  He can smell soap, toothpaste, shampoo and fabric softener. 

“You want tea?”

“I can make it.”

“Okay.”  John goes back to washing up.

Sherlock glances sidelong at John’s neck as he reaches for the kettle.  He sets it down again, and dips the tips of his fingers in the dish water.  “You have…”  He says by way of explanation as he reaches out and gently rubs the shaving cream away.

“Oh.  What was it?”

“Shaving cream.”

“Oh.  Ta.”

Washing again.  John seems completely oblivious, impervious.  Why?  How?  

Sherlock is aching for contact, a brush of skin, a tickle of breath, even the glide of John’s shirt against his hand sets his nerves alight.  

John is humming now—bloody well humming while he does the washing up.  When has John ever hummed?  How can John be so calm, cool, collected?  How is John not orbiting him in a constant state of arousal looking for any chance to initiate the slightest touch?!  It’s highly unfair.

“You okay?”  

Sherlock realizes that he has been standing at the counter simply staring down at the empty kettle for—well, who knows for how long.  He shoves the kettle in John’s direction.  “Fill this.”

John does.  He doesn’t make a snide comment about Sherlock’s lack of manners.  He doesn’t get slightly tight around the lips the way he does when Sherlock is being particularly demanding.   He just does it and goes back to the washing.

“The painters are coming this afternoon,” he suddenly announces.

“What?”

“To finish my room.  Amazing that.  Miraculous timing on Mrs. Hudson’s part.”  John’s tone is laced with amusement.

“When will it be done?”

“No idea, but it will be nice to be able to put some things up and get at things without having to crawl under sheets of plastic.  That was getting to be a bit much.”

Sherlock clicks on the kettle.

“I have things I left here after you…  Clothes and things.  There are a couple of jumpers I still haven’t found.  I need to dig through the dresser up there.  I think things might have got stuffed to the back of the drawer and then fallen down between the dresser and the wall.  Jumpers don’t just disappear.”

Sherlock ignores this comment.  He has two of John’s jumpers in the trunk in his room.  The oatmeal one John wore the day he came to first view the flat, and the charcoal grey cardigan with the pockets.  He will wash them and then put them back some day when John isn’t home.

“You do know you have to plug that in.”  John reaches across and plugs in the kettle.  Sherlock ignores this comment too.

_The painters are coming._

_They are finishing John’s room._

“You know, if you are just going to stand there you could help dry.”

“What?”

“The dishes.”  John nods toward the plates, mugs and pans stacked in the drying rack on the counter.  “You could dry if you’re standing there already.”

“It’s more sanitary to let them air dry.”

John laughs.  “Okay.  That’s the best excuse for getting out of housework I’ve heard in awhile.”

Sherlock scowled.  “Call it what you will.  It’s still a fact.”

“That’s boiling.”

“What?”

“The kettle.”

“Oh.”

Sherlock shuts it off and makes the tea mindlessly.  

_The painters are coming._

A mug clunks down beside his.  “Make me some of that, will you,” John requests.  Sherlock does.

“We should do something this afternoon.  They’re going to be here, clattering about, and the smell’s likely to be awful.  Why don’t we go out.  Any cases?”

Sherlock turns.  John is sitting at the kitchen table now.  He stares.  

John lifts a brow.  “Cases—yeah.  You know, those things we used to solve together.”

“I used to solve them, John.  You used to come along and take notes.”

“Hey!”

“Oh don’t be like that.  You know what I mean.  You—you recorded things and helped with the footwork, and you were—well, you were _you_ which has always been your greatest contribution.”

“That’s better.”  John smiles and nods toward the counter.  “Is my tea ready?”

“Oh, yes.”  Sherlock grabs both mugs, and goes to the table, sliding one across to John before sitting himself.

“And don’t forget saving your life,” John adds.  “I saved your life loads of times.”

“Yes, yes.  And saving my life.”  Sherlock smiles and winks before taking a sip of his tea.  “There isn’t an interesting case to be found at the moment, I’m afraid.  Unless you consider a routine domestic homicide to be of interest.  Lestrade’s people seem to suspect it is something more, but I can’t see why they…”

A muscle in John’s jaw twitches.  “No.  No domestics.”

“I thought not.”  Sherlock says softly, and stares down at the scratched table top rather than at the tension in John’s features, the way he clenches and releases his left hand.

“You could accept your sisters invitation to meet for coffee.”

John’s head snaps up.  “How do you…”

Sherlock smiles sheepishly.  

“Never mind.  I don’t want to know.  And the answer is no.  Definitely not.”

“Why?”

“I was kind of hoping to spend the day with you, you idiot.”

“I know.  I could come along.”

John’s mouth drops open a little.  He stares.  His mouth snaps shut again with an audible pop.  “No.”

“Why?”

“You’re not meeting my sister.”

“I’ve already met your sister.”

John chokes on his tea.  “What?  When?!”

Before your wedding.  I needed to know if she was planning on attending.

“Why?!”  John is clearly upset.

“It was a part of my duties as best man to…”

“No it wasn’t, Sherlock.  It officially wasn’t.”

“Are you angry?”

“Why did you never mention it?”

Sherlock shrugs.  “It didn’t seem all that important, and I assumed that Harry would say something.”

“Well, she didn’t”

“Why are you upset?”

“I’m not upset!” John snaps, nearly shouts.

Sherlock stares.

“I’m not upset,” John repeats forcing a false calm into his voice.

“I liked her.”

“You—“  John shakes his head, and only then seems to really register what he’s just said.  “You did?”

“Yes.”

“She was—she was different from what I expected.”

John snorts.  “I bet she was.”

“So coffee?”

“I didn’t say yes, Sherlock.”

Sherlock silently sips his tea.

“Fine.  Okay.  Coffee.  But, be on your best behavior.”

Sherlock scowls.  “I’m always on my best behavior.”

“You’re almost never on your best behavior.  Just—just don’t say anything that’s going to embarrass me.”

An unpleasant sourness forms in Sherlock’s stomach.  “Like what?”

John’s mouth forms a tight line.  His eyes drop to his teacup.  “Just behave.”

* * *

Harry is already at the cafe when they arrive.  She waves animatedly at them from a small table near the back as they walk in.  There is a woman with her: tall, slim, brunette.  The woman is typing away on her phone.  She doesn’t look up as they approach.

“John.  Finally!  It’s been ages!”  Harry gets up and throws her arms around her brother. He hugs her back, but it’s stiff.  He’s tense, agitated, and has been almost from the moment they stepped out of the cab across the street.  He’s staring at the other woman who’s still slouched in her chair, texting in silence.

“Sherlock.”  Harry smiles at him and nods.

“Harry.”

“And this is India.”  

The woman finally looks up.  She is attractive.  Well set features, well proportioned figure, eyes a striking shade of pale blue-green.  She holds out her hand to John, who takes it. 

“John.  Nice to meet you.”  She is very formal.  Not rude, but definitely not warm.

“And you.”  John is staring.  Harry notices.  Her brow knits a little, and she clears her throat.  

“I’ve got a tea coming for me, and a cappuccino for India.  Do you two want anything.”

“No, I’m…”  John begins.

“Coffee.  Black.”  Sherlock speaks over him.

Harry hurries away to put in Sherlock’s order, but she continues to glance back at their table.  She’s worried.  She’s worried about John being around the other woman.  

“So you’re the famous Sherlock Holmes,”  the woman finally says.

“Yes.”

She glances back and forth between John and him.  There’s a sharp brilliance behind her eyes as she sizes the two of them up.  

Sherlock can feel the tension building in John—suspicion, but also the smallest hint of arousal.

“And you’re John’s…?”  She pauses.  It’s not that she’s not already seen it all for herself, but she’s considerately leaving room, letting them define things for themselves.  Her eyes travel to John, hold his gaze.  _Interesting._   

It’s Sherlock she’s addressed though, and that could be problematic.  John was quite specific about not embarrassing him, and Sherlock isn’t quite sure what all that might encompass.

Harry chooses that moment to return with the drinks.

“Getting to know one another, then?”

“Thanks.”   The woman smiles genuinely at Harry as she takes her cup. It’s the kind of smile that hints at intimacy and an affection not easily won.  Harry seems to shine a little brighter beneath the warmth of it. 

She sits down and turns to John.  “How have you been?  You haven’t blogged in ages.  I didn’t even know that you and Sherlock were back together until I met Martha at Tesco last week and she told me you’d moved back in.”

“How’s your job?  No more unplanned absences lately?”  John completely ignores and then deflect’s his sister’s question with one of his own.

The other woman looks up at this, her eyes snapping back and forth between the two of them.

Harry is clearly thrown, but she makes a valiant effort to cover her discomfort and answers none-the-less.  “Fine.  Good.”

John nods.  “Good.”

Sherlock leans back in his chair and watches in silence.

Harry forces a smile and forges ahead.  “So you’re back solving crimes.  I’m sure that’s a relief.  You were always so bored at the clinic.”

John clenches his hand under the table.  “No.”

“No?”  Harry looks surprised.  “But you’re back together, aren’t you?”  She looks to Sherlock.  “I just assumed?”

“No.  I mean I wasn’t bored at the clinic.  And we’re not…”  John catches himself, his eyes flitting uncomfortably from table top to Sherlock, to the other woman, and back down at his hand clenched tightly on the table top.  He drops it to his lap.

“Oh.”  

The woman has stopped whatever she’s been doing on her phone.  She sits back and observes silently along with Sherlock.

Harry clearly doesn’t know what to say.  She is aware her footing has slipped somewhere, but she’s not sure where, or how to correct it.  She turns to Sherlock.

“And how are you, Sherlock.  You keeping my brother in trouble?”

“Always.”

Harry smiles.  “And is he behaving himself?”

Sherlock glances over at John who looks like he would like to crawl into a dark hole somewhere and hibernate until the whole ordeal is over.  

“Not in the least,” Sherlock responds.

One of Harry’s brows arches toward her hairline.  The woman beside him smiles knowingly and goes back to texting.  John takes an absent, murderous sip of Sherlock’s coffee and then cringes when he realizes what it is.

Best to redirect things.  Sherlock turns to the woman beside him.  “And you?  What do you do?”

The woman looks up from her phone.  “Consultant.”

“Consulting in what?”

“Legal matters.”

“I see.  And you’re her…?”  Sherlock looks briefly at Harry.

The woman smiles.  “Yes.  I am.”  

_Oh, clever._

The woman sits up, uncrosses her legs and leans forward to rest her forearms against the table in one fluid motion.  “So, John.  I hear you’re the one I have to thank for having Harry in my life, is that right?”

John’s mouth twitches.  It tightens into the familiar tight line which both Sherlock and Harry immediately recognize as dangerous, but which this woman seems either ignorant of or completely indifferent to. 

“I suppose…” John offers hesitantly.

“She tells me you’ve been a great support over the years, keeping at eye on her, keeping her honest.”

“Okay…”

Harry looks nervous now, but not as uncomfortable as John.

“She’s doing well, John.  Very well.”  

John nods carefully.  “Yeah?  Good.  That’s—that’s great.”

The woman leans back again, and looks down at her phone.  “I read your blog.  unnecessarily flowery prose for the most part.  Interesting, though.”  She looks askance at Sherlock.  “The one about the aluminium crutch.  Excellent piece of deductive reasoning, there.”

Sherlock nods in wry acknowledgement.  

The woman smirks and looks back down at her phone.  “But you’ve not updated in awhile,” she continues

“I’ve been busy.”

“No cases?”

“No.”  John looks at Sherlock.  His gaze almost accusatory.

“Hmmm…  Personal activities occupying the bulk of your time then.  Good.  That’s nice.”  She looks up, drags her eyes over every detail of John’s person, before looking back down at her phone again.  “It’s suiting you.  I tell Harry not to worry about you.  She never listens.”

Sherlock is having an unexpectedly lovely time.

John looks apoplectic.

“We should have you two over for dinner,” Sherlock offers.

John’s head snaps up.  Harry’s face spreads into a smile.  The other woman says nothing.

“The other bedroom’s being painted at the moment, so things are a bit of a mess, but in a week or two.”

“That—that would be nice.”  Harry seems sincerely pleased.  

“John will text you with the details.”

“Yeah, sure.  Of course I will.”  John mutters woodenly.

Harry blinks at John.  The other woman fights a smile, eyes never leaving her phone.

The conversation eventually turns to other things, but John is tellingly quiet for the duration.

When they finally part ways, Harry makes a point of hugging Sherlock.  It is odd, though not as uncomfortable as he would have imagined.  John has already strode a short distance from them and is tensely scanning the street—for a taxi, Sherlock assumes.  

Harry promises to text soon, and the two women walk away in the opposite direction.  Harry’s arm loops easily through the woman’s next to her, and the other woman’s eyes glance briefly away from her phone, fondly down at the blond head which rests momentarily against her arm.  Sherlock can’t help but feel a twinge of envy.

By the time he joins him John is pacing the curb like a caged tiger.  “Why are there never any cabs in this fucking part of town?!”

Sherlock blinks.  “The weather is nice enough.  We’ll just walk.”

John turns on his heel and shoots him a glare.

Sherlock shakes his head.  “What?”

John clenches his jaw.  His hand balls and releases at his side.  “Fine.  We’ll walk.”  He turns and sets off at a remarkable pace given how short his legs are.  Sherlock actually has to pick up his own to keep up, and still John always seems to manage to be two paces ahead of him.

“What’s wrong?”  He finally asks after five minutes of nearly sprinting down the pavement in absolute silence.

“Nothing!”  John snaps, keeps walking, but then stops so suddenly that Sherlock almost topples over him.  “Just what the hell was that?!”  He jabs a finger back in the direction from which they’ve just come.

Several people walking by turn to look.  “What was what?”

John’s face is red.  His finger is pointed in Sherlock’s face now.  “You know what.”

“No…”

“Dinner?!”  John’s spits out the word like it’s an obscenity.

“Dinner?”

“Dinner, Sherlock.”

“What?  You’re upset because I invited your sister to dinner?”

“Good deduction.  Yeah.”

“Why?”

John shakes his head.  He’s got the same look on his face that Sherlock gets when he is forced to deal with imbeciles.  It hurts more than Sherlock would like to admit.

“So you just arrange my social calendar now, do you?  You decide when I’ve not been socializing enough with my family, when I need to get some fresh air, where and with whom we are going to spend our afternoons?  You and my sister just get together and chat about me whenever it suits?”

Sherlock is confused.  “Mary and I used to do it all the time.  You never minded then.”

“YES I DID!”  John looks borderline homicidal.  Sherlock isn’t sure if it is the fact that he has broken their hitherto unspoken agreement to not bring up Mary’s name, or whether he is actually just that angry over Sherlock’s perceived meddling.

Several people turn and scowl.  One woman pushing a baby carriage quickens her step as she passes, head down.

“Shh…”

“Don’t!”

“What?”

“Don’t shush me.”

“People are looking.”

“Who gives a fuck?!”

Sherlock takes a breath and a slight step back.  He looks at John.  This is a John he’s not sure he’s seen before.

“And what the hell was that with you and India?”

“Who?”

“Harry’s—“  John waves a hand about animatedly.  “Whatever she is.”

“Oh, _the other woman_.  What do you mean?”

“A little cozy weren’t you?”

“Sorry?”

John is visibly trembling.  His breath is coming in short shallow gasps.  Random, irrational, almost paranoid accusations.

“Breathe, John.”

“SHUT UP!”  

John’s face is growing pale and there are small beads of sweat forming along his hairline.  His chest is rising and falling much too quickly.

“John.”  Sherlock sees the moment John’s physiological panic response overrides his anger.  The look in his eyes slowly shifts from rage to fear.  He should sit down, try to master his breathing, but instead he turns tail and runs.

It takes a moment for Sherlock’s head to catch up, but the moment it does he dashes off after him.  John’s heading for home, which is good.  The running—not so much.  

By the time Sherlock turns the corner of their street, he can see John staggering up the steps and through the front door of the flat.  Sherlock sprints the last stretch, and stumbles in a few seconds later.

The entry reeks of paint.  John is on the stairs, half-sitting, half lying and clearly having difficulty.  Mrs. Hudson is standing there with a look of mute horror on her face.  

“Get him a glass of water,” Sherlock snaps, as he strides over and lifts John to his feet.  “Outside.  Fresh air.  Come on.”  He ushers him through Mrs. Hudson’s flat and out the back door of her kitchen, lowering him to the stoop as soon as they are outside.  Mrs. Hudson follows close behind and hovers at the doorway, one hand at her mouth in a gesture of concern, the other trembling a little as she grips the glass of water.

Sherlock squats down and cups John’s face in both his hands without thought.  “Look at me.  You have to breathe.  I’m sorry.  About everything.  We can—we’ll work it out later, but right now you have to breathe.  Purse your lips, and breathe.”

“Should I call an ambulance?”  Mrs. Hudson’s voice is small with worry.

“Not yet.  Give him a chance.”

John is shaking his head.  _No.  No ambulance._ He sways a little, and Sherlock drops a hand to his arm to steady him.  “Good.  Try, alright.  You’re doing well.  Just breathe.”  One of his legs slots between both of John’s, and John reaches down, balls his fist in the fabric of Sherlock’s trouser leg.

“It’s fine.  You’re alright.”

John’s eyes drop closed for a moment.  His breathing starts to even. 

Sherlock looks up to Mrs. Hudson still hovering in the doorway, and reaches for the glass of water.  She comes out, hands it to him, sits down next to John, and starts to rub his back.

“Here.”  Sherlock hands him the glass.  John’s hands are still trembling, but he manages somehow.  He drains half the glass and then sets it on the stoop beside him, before letting his head drop to Mrs. Hudson’s shoulder.

She smiles—tight, concerned—at Sherlock, but continues with her ministrations.  It seems to calm him.

Sherlock reaches out and takes John’s hands in his.  “Maybe next time don’t run.”  He urges softly.

John’s eyes crack open.  He smiles weakly.  His eyes look tired and sad.  “Sorry,” he huffs.

“It’s okay.”

John shakes his head, but his eyes slide shut again.

“Something to eat,” Mrs. Hudson finally says.  “Soup and sandwich, and a nice cuppa.  You two boys go upstairs, open all the windows to air the place out a bit, and I’ll bring you up a bite in just awhile.”

“Can you stand?”  Sherlock asks.  

John nods and slowly gets to his feet.  Sherlock reaches for his arm, but he shrugs him off.  “I’m fine.” 

* * *

The flat is noxious.  John shuffles up to the room on the third floor without a word.  Sherlock makes his rounds through the rest of the flat and opens every single window, turns on the exhaust fan over the cooker and in the bath.  

Mrs. Hudson appears after some minutes with a tray of the food she had promised, but John has yet to reappear from upstairs.  She sets it down on the coffee table and glances instinctively up the stairs when she sees John is not in the sitting room.  “Is he alright?”  She whispers.

Sherlock follows her gaze, and sighs.  “He will be, I think.”

“Take care of him, Sherlock.  He’s been awfully up and down since Mary and the baby died.”

“I know.”

With a small cluck of her tongue and shake of her head Mrs. Hudson heads back downstairs.

Sherlock waits.  He waits some more.

The soup will get cold.

He heads upstairs.

John’s door is open.  He is sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clasped in his lap, staring at the floor.  He looks up as Sherlock walks in.  

“Mrs. Hudson brought lunch.”

John nods and stares down at his hands.

“It’s been there awhile.  Soup’s getting cold I think.”

John nods again, but doesn’t look up this time.

Sherlock doesn’t know what else to say. 

“Doesn’t look like my room anymore.”

“Hmm?”

John looks around at the subdued blue-grey walls, the new striped paper behind his bed.  “The room.  It doesn’t look like mine.”

“You don’t like it?”

John just shrugs.

“I’m sure she meant well.  Thought you might like a fresh start, or…”  

A small sound, choked, raw, escapes John’s throat.  He brings a hand up to his eyes and turns away.  

Sherlock’s first instinct is touch, but John is angry at him, or was less than an hour ago.  He doesn’t want to leave.  John is not alright.  But it is quite possible that John doesn’t even want him here.

“John…”  Soft.  Careful.

And John starts to sob in earnest.  This isn’t like the tears in the bath well over a month ago.  This is something different, something deeper.  Deep and wracking, it sounds like something tearing John in two as he tries to wrestle it into submission. 

Sherlock sits.  The mattress dips a little with his weight causing John to shift, his hip and thigh coming to rest against Sherlock’s.  Even so, there is no indication that John is even aware of his presence.

“John,” he tries again, because he can’t think of any other words, but he doesn’t know quite how to act either.  Things are still too tentative, too new between them, and compounding everything is the horrible gut feeling that he has somehow caused this.  Some social blunder, some misstep, some misspoken phrase with Harry and the other woman at the cafe.

John’s shoulders shake and Sherlock aches to touch.  He seemed accepting of Mrs. Hudson’s gesture earlier, and so Sherlock tentatively lays a hand on John’s shoulder, let’s it slide down his back.  

This only seems to make things worse.  Not the desired outcome.  Should he pull back, try something else?  John has not asked him to stop, though.  He slides his hand back up to John’s shoulder and rests it there.

He should apologize.  He is hopeless at these things and he knows it.  It was ill-considered to suggest coffee with his sister.  He only thought that John needed to get out, to see people other than him, and that since he had been neglecting Harry, and she had texted him that very morning to ask if he wanted to meet it was the logical choice. 

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock tries.  “It was a bad idea, coffee with Harry.  You were right.  I should have told you that we had already met before the wedding.  I shouldn’t have invited her and the other woman to dinner.”

“Shut up, okay.”  John mutters, but he turns and buries his face in Sherlock’s neck.

“I—I’m sorry.”

“I know.  Just shut up.”  John’s voice is hoarse.  His face is hot, his stubble rough against Sherlock’s neck.

There is more, of course, much more Sherlock should apologize for.  He runs through the litany of infractions in his mind, one by one, trying to determine where they fall in the hierarchy of things that are triggering John’s grief and anger.

John huffs against his neck, and sniffs.  “I said shut up.”

“I’ve not said anything.”

“You were thinking.  It was irritating.”  He can feel John’s lips stretch into a smile, and Sherlock feels lost all over again.

John’s arms slip around his waist, tighten as the smile fades, and Sherlock feels fresh tears trickle down to soak into the fabric of his shirt collar.  He returns the gesture because John is starting to cling so tightly he is finding it difficult to breathe.

“You smell good.  So good.”  John mouths against Sherlock’s throat.

Sherlock’s head is buzzing.  John needs something, but he is utterly at a loss as to what and now is not the time to draw a blank.  Now is the time for vigilance, for hyper-awareness.

“John.  I am sorry I suggested we go out.”

“Doesn’t matter,”  John’s lips have started to form kisses which he peppers over his neck, along his jaw, behind his ear.

He wants to stop it, to talk, to determine what triggered everything that had happened between them, but John is doing that thing—just there—and also…

“John, we really should…”

“Shh.”

“But…”

“Don’t.”  John shuts his mouth with a kiss.  It’s salty, tear damp, and slightly rough.

Sherlock’s mind is disturbingly aware.  Unlike the night on the couch, and all that came after, his brain is fully online, and sharp as a pin.  John’s body is tense, and his breathe quick, shallow— partially from his mounting arousal, but, Sherlock suspects, more likely from the continued low level of agitation and anxiety brewing just below the surface.  John seems detached, his movements almost mechanical.  He is dissociating, trying to drown himself.

“John.”

“Mmm…”  It’s moaned against his neck, sends shivers through him.  John is fumbling with Sherlock’s shirt.  “Just.  I just want to…”

“No.  John, this won’t…”

John’s hands slipping under his shirt, over the smooth planes of his back.  John pushing him back onto the bed, crawling on top of him.  Half hard through his trousers.  Eyes a little glazed.  Breathing still not quite right.  

“No.”  More firmly this time, but John doesn’t seem to hear him.

“John!”  in an emphatic whisper.  And this time he reaches up and takes John’s face in both of his hands, sees John blink.  His arms tremble where they are supporting his weight either side of Sherlock’s head.

“Not now.  Later if you like, but not now.  You need to settle, to eat.  We need to…”

John scrambles off of him.  retreats to the far end of the bed, back against the wall, knees hugged to his chest, eyes hollow.  “Jesus…”

Sherlock sits up.  “It’s alright.  You’re—you’ve got to give yourself time to calm down, that’s all.”

“Sherlock.  I—”

“I know.  It’s fine.”

John looks like he’s going to be ill.  

“What happened earlier, with Harry.  We should—I need to know.  I made a misstep somewhere.  Tell me where and I won’t do it again.”

“Oh god, Sherlock.  You didn’t—you didn’t _do_ anything.  You…”  John doesn’t finish, just shakes his head, looks at Sherlock, eyes—eyes so terrifyingly empty.

“Are you alright,” Sherlock finally says because John is starting to worry him—more than a little bit.  He can feel it.  He can see it.  John is slowly unravelling.  

John’s been unravelling for years, really; for as long as Sherlock has known him.  John is a Pandora’s box of secrets and repressed atrocities.  Most days he manages to keep the lid on.  But sometimes something happens, the most innocuous occurrence knocks the lid ajar.  And the things that start to seep out at the breach…  The suffocating horror of it all… 

That is when the agitation begins, the long weeks of silence, John sitting in his chair, watching telly, fingers tapping on the arm of his chair, hand clenching and unclenching in an unconscious attempt to dissipate the nervous energy; John occasionally finding the motivation to cook them a little something for dinner, or tidy the flat, but mostly just itching, itching for a case.  

And that is when Sherlock runs him.  That is when he finds the cases that will get John on his feet, scouting damp alleys for shadows, tracking down clues, uncovering corpses—nice, clean, suburban type corpses still dressed in properly pressed suits, hair artfully arranged: single, small-caliber bullet to the skull, poison, overdoses - relatively tidy deaths.

Nothing like Afghanistan and its disembodied limbs, civilians burst open like overripe fruit in roadside ditches, and the charred and ruined flesh of boys screaming in agony, twisted and wrecked with wounds that even modern medical science was impotent to heal.  

And never domestics.  Never.  

There had been one, in the early days, just before Moriarty’s twisted games, his bombs and that night at the pool.  It had seemed like a basic adultery case but then there had been children involved, and drinking, and livid bruises on rosy flesh, and Sherlock had seen something shift.  He’d seen a shadow cross over John’s eyes as the woman, their client, sat in their flat, small blond boy in her lap, bruises all up his arms and her trying to hold back tears so the child wouldn’t see.  He’d seen the lid of Pandora’s box knocked just a little askew.  And John’s fingers had twitched for a trigger, and bottles of cheap whiskey had appeared in their kitchen cabinets where none had been before.

He’d pushed John into something else, solved the case himself, solved it quickly.  And John had recovered a little, pulled himself back together after a week or two, learned to pretend again.  It was a lie they silently agreed to live with.  John was fine.  Sherlock let him be.

But those pretty white lies are starting to unravel now.  Too much has happened.  A fake suicide, betrayals of trust, and bullets ripping through flesh, making wounds that never seem to heal even after flesh binds or graves swallow them whole.  

 _The Work_ is Sherlock’s lie.  The thing he created for himself so that he could pretend it could all be balanced somehow in the end.  But, _The Work_ can only lend the illusion of meaning to the violence and death for so long.  Those things are always random and meaningless in reality.  Sherlock knows this.  He’s known it since the day at age eight when he took the dog his dinner in the back garden as he’d always done, and instead of being met with eager whimpers and a wagging tail, instead found him still, brown eyes wide and empty, belly distended, foam about the lips.  Poisoned.  Dead.

Everyday people do horrible things.  Horrible things happen for no reason.  Monsters sometimes exhibit small and unfathomable kindnesses.  There is no rhyme or reason.  Life is chaos, and life isn’t fair.  It steals everything in the end, everything you hold dear, and the pain never fully goes away.  So one just lies to themselves until they can maintain the lie no longer, and then they collapse into themselves like a dying star.

John is collapsing now, in front of him.  Bit by beautiful bit the light is going out, and Sherlock knows he can’t stop it.  Even so, he wants to be here to see him flicker out.  He wants to be here to see what will be reborn the other side of all this crushing blackness.

John’s eyes are full.  “It wasn’t you.  You didn’t do anything.  It—it was everything.  Harry, and that woman, and the neighborhood.”

And that is when it hits him.  _Stupid!  Stupid!_ The cafe.  Two blocks from—only two blocks from where one of Moriarty’s faceless assassins had snuffed out two lives with two well-placed bullets.  

It still haunts him: Mrs. Hudson’s frantic whispers waking him from a rare night’s sleep, and John standing in the front entry of Baker Street at eleven o’clock on a Thursday night, eyes blank, hands trembling, coat wet with blood, and rain, and grey matter.  Lestrade’s frantic phone calls.  The bodies.  Two: Mary, the baby.  Bodies which Sherlock had identified, because he could do that.  It was the least he could do.  Gemma not even looking real.  Like a tiny wax doll with a lurid hole in her spine.  Mary’s cornflower blue eyes, surprised and clouded, a hole through her chest and the back of her skull gone.  

Mary’s association with Jim Moriarty was a betrayal of the most unpardonable kind, but she had loved in spite of herself, she had loved in her odd, possessive kind of way.  And in the end it was her coveting and her loyalty to John, and Gemma, and the new life she had built for herself that had been her undoing.  It’s hard to wholly hate someone you have once loved so fully, Sherlock has learned.  Mary still has a small place in his heart, despite everything.  It is unlikely he would have John now if she hadn’t fought Jim so fiercely to keep him alive for herself.

The image and the pain of that night, that loss still slices through Sherlock at the oddest times; halts his hand or steals his breath during a visit to the morgue, or even just over morning tea.  And John—John was actually there.  John had to live it.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t think.  I—I let Harry choose where to meet and I didn’t think.”

“It’s fine,” John says, because that is what he always says.  But it isn’t.  It’s never been.  And Sherlock can’t do this anymore.

“I’m not sure it is.”

John’s hand twists in the bedclothes.  His jaw twitches, throat clenches as he swallows hard.  “It has to be.  _Somehow_.  Somehow it just has to be.”

“But it isn’t.”

John’s hands tremble the way they did the night Mary died.  His eyes fill. “Let me have this, Sherlock, because I can’t—I just can’t…”  He shakes his head, wipes at his eyes almost angrily with the heel of one palm.

“Tell me when you don’t want to go somewhere or do something.  Tell me why if you know why.  Tell me you don’t know why if you don’t.  Just—just tell me John.”

John takes a deep breath.  “Today.  You didn’t do it on purpose.  It’s not your fault.  You shouldn’t have to even make those kinds of accommodations.  I—I’ll work this out.  You don’t need to…”

“Maybe I want to.”

John’s breath catches.  He looks up.  “Why?”

“Because you’d do it for me.  Because you have done.  Because that’s what best friends do, isn’t it?  And because you’ve always taken care of me, John.  Always.  Even when no one else could be bothered.  You’ve never made me feel like a burden.  You’ve soldiered through my moods, and the explosions in the kitchen, the heads in the freezer.  I’ve drugged you, lied to you, I’ve inexcusably endangered your life and the lives of your family, I’ve abandoned you and made you think I was dead for two whole years and yet—here you are.

“And I don’t know how, or why, but you love me.  Through it all, in spite of it all, you love me, and you stay.  So, is it really so hard to understand why I might want to do the same?”

John sucks in a quivering breath.  Two tears escape to slide down his cheeks. “No one stays…  No one ever stays.”

“Well, I am—if you want me.”

John lets out a small puff of a laugh, and fresh tears follow.  He releases from the tight ball he’s been curled into, crawls the short way across the small mattress, and in a moment of vulnerability so wildly out of character it actually takes Sherlock’s brain a few seconds to catch up, lays down in Sherlock’s lap, and buries his face against his hip.

Sherlock lays a hand on top of his head, strokes his thumb against his temple, because it is what John would do for him, and it is all he can think of.  It’s such a small thing, so seemingly inadequate.  But it’s what he has to give here and now.  

He hopes it’s enough.  He hopes it’s right.


End file.
